For You, Kevin
Kevin Sutherland had been wanting to go on vacation for nearly two years. He had gone to Miami's South Beach when he was a teenager with his parents years before, but now that he was almost thirty and making a decent living, he panged to go back, this time with a wallet full of money and nobody looking over his shoulder telling him what to do and what not to do. Kevin wanted to see ALL the sights South Beach had to offer.
Being an up and coming reporter for a small New England Daily however, Kevin just hadn't been able to find the opportunity to get away for an extended period of time. The news unfortunately continued whether Kevin Sutherland wanted a few days off or not. Kevin felt both a twinge of pride as well as sickening embarrassment that he hadn't missed a day in over two years. More than anything else, he direly needed to get away and enjoy life a little.
It had been frustrating for Kevin, seeing coworkers of his with lesser talent and work ethic moving on to bigger papers in and around Boston and with the constant 'nose to the grindstone' lifestyle he was leading, Kevin could feel the initial stages of burnout setting in.
So when Kevin walked into his editor's office that Monday morning, his overriding hope was that his request for 10 days of vacation time would be the primary reason for the sitdown.
"Hey Kevin...Come on in," Kevin's boss, Richard Lennon, said between sips of his coffee.
"Good Morning Dick...what's up?" Kevin answered slyly, knowing his editor hated to be called that.
Looking down, Kevin immediately noticed his vacation request sitting on the top of his boss's cluttered desk.
"What do you think is up Kevin?" Lennon smiled slightly. "You keep bugging a guy for a couple of days off...he might get the feeling you don't like him or something."
Leaning forward in his seat, Kevin tried containing himself, feeling the tide was moving in his favor.
"So...Mr. Lennon...you're saying that you're gonna..." Kevin said slowly, suddenly trying to be as polite as he could.
"...I'm gonna give you a few days out of the office," Lennon interrupted, knowing Sutherland might be a little less interested when he put the conditions on the vacation time.
"YEEESSS!!" Kevin screamed internally, doing his best not to pump his fist in front of his boss.
"Calm down boy...calm down... Look Kev...I'll cut to the chase," Lennon continued soberly, "I'm giving you a week off to do with however you want, but first I have a little assignment I'd like you to do for the paper. You like baseball don't you?"
"Yeah Dick...I like baseball...but I'd rather be on the beach drinking a cooler full of Coronas," Kevin replied jokingly.
Richard Lennon picked up a two month old copy of a newspaper sitting on his desk, rolled it up and passed it towards Kevin, who showed catlike reflexes snagging it from the air.
"You know what that is Son...that's a copy of the biggest selling issue in our newspaper's history," Lennon beamed in a proud, fatherly tone.
Kevin opened it up and scanned the front page. "The Carney Killings..?" Kevin asked, curious as to why that particular issue sold so many copies.
"That's part of the reason...check page 17 though....the front of the sports section....back when the Braves visited Fenway in May...remember the blowup."
"Oh yeah...." Kevin sighed as opened the paper up to page 17. "Rocker almost killed Hildebrand after the game when he asked Rocker if he was sorry about what he said about New York fans after meeting Boston's fans."
"I think Hildebrand meant it as a joke...but I guess after Rocker blew the game he was in no mood for humor," the editor laughed.
"Well Kevin...the point is.....the Sox go down to Atlanta next week for a series and I found enough money in the budget to send someone down there to cover it."
"Dick...Mr. Lennon...we're just a small town paper...were not the Globe...why are we doing that?" Kevin asked, amazed at his editor's sudden freedom with the purse strings.
"Because of what your holding in your hands right there Son. When Hildbrand got Rocker to blow up like that and ESPN, CNN, SI all called, it gave our paper some much needed national attention...I want us to at least have a presence down there for the rematch series."
"Well...why not send Hildebrand back down there since he's at the center of the storm..." Kevin shot back.
"I tried...the Braves wouldn't approve his press pass...can't blame them I guess... they just want this whole thing to disappear...that's when I thought of you Kevin. And you know as well as I do....Hildebrand's scared to death of that guy now...Your the only guy left on the staff here that I think could stand up to Rocker."
Kevin just sat back in his chair stunned, internally smiling, while he bathed in the rare compliment from his boss.
"And the fact that I was going down that way to Florida didn't have anything to do with it either..." Kevin said sarcastically.
"None whatsoever," Lennon laughed, both men knowing it was the truth.
"OK Dick...I'll do it. I guess I can stomach 3 days in Atlanta to spend 10 in Miami," Kevin beamed, suddenly imagining the warm Florida sunlight on his skin.
"One more thing Kevin...that's only 5 days in Miami...I need you back here to cover the Carney Murder Trial that starts in a week and a half," Lennon said, taking some of the air out of Kevin's balloon.
* * * * *
"Goddamn its hot!!" Kevin gasped, wringing the sweat of his neck as he sat in his open air press box seat at Atlanta's Turner Field.
"It ain't the heat down here Kid...it's the stupidity," a fellow Boston sports journalist said who was sitting beside Kevin for the game, eating a very messy chilidog.
Sitting in front of Kevin was a scorecard, the first one he had used since he was a effervescent 12-year-old watching the Sox with his Dad at Fenway Park. A big yellow legal pad sat to his side also along with two Bic pens to use to write down any relevant items to bring up at the post game locker room interviews.
Kevin always loved baseball growing up but with heartbreak after heartbreak coming from his beloved Red Sox, he had slowly weaned himself from the American Pastime. He still enjoyed the game enough however to sit through three sweltering days in Atlanta to get a week on the sands of South Beach.
Sitting in the press box several stories above the playing field watching batting practice, Kevin's eyes gravitated up to the large diamond vision screen above the outfield stands that showed game highlights and ran occasional commercials.
Somewhere during the litany of ads, CNN ran a commercial for their 24 hour cable service, CNN Headline News. Kevin watched with bored fascination, chin resting snugly in hand, as the promo ran by.
Suddenly his eyes shot open and were treated to the wonderful smile and beautiful face of one of the Headline News anchors on the huge screen that he had always lusted after. Her name was Lynne Russell.
Being a reporter himself, part of Kevin's job description entailed keeping up with the newsworthy events locally as well as around the world. On the occasions when he was home during the evenings and channel surfing, he had always made it a point to check in on what was unfolding throughout the country by taking in a dose of CNN Headline News. Often, the lovely anchor would be the well dressed and stacked figure of Lynne Russell sitting behind the desk, reading the day's news with a voluptuous, almost come hither look on her sultry face.
Kevin felt strangely like a lovestruck schoolboy when he would sit and watch such a beautiful and well built woman stare straight at him for minutes at a time, almost as if she was doing her job only for him.
When the CNN ad disappeared off the diamond vision, it was followed by a brief reminder that CNN offered daily tours of the huge TV studios. Right then, something clicked inside Kevin's head, telling him that would be a great way to kill a few hours the next day before he had to report to the ballpark.
* * * * *
As Kevin was shepherded through the tour along with the 20 or so other tourists in his group, it hit him suddenly that it was early in the afternoon on a Saturday. He cringed at the realization that he had never seen Lynne do a show that early in the day, especially on a weekend.
Now deflated, in more ways than one, Kevin stoically fell in line with the group and tried his best to block out the monotone drone of the tour guide as he desperately scoped out any other attractive women to take his mind off of not being able to see Lynne.
About halfway through the tour, as the procession meandered across the elevated walkway that gives the tourists a chance to look down onto the inner workings of the main studios at CNN, Kevin's eyes were completely diverted from the sight of the middle aged woman's butt in front of him, down over the walkway, into the main studio.
A moment after he began staring down, he ended up plowing right into the woman's behind. "OOOOPPPSS...Gosh...I'm sorry Miss...I must have tripped...I'm sorry," Kevin blathered, trying to compose himself.
"That's OK..." the slightly graying lady replied, as she turned to see if he was really alright with a voice that seemed to say..."OHH...you could bump into me ..ANYTIME."